Selenophobia
by Lumiere de Venise
Summary: Junko and Chang'e have always been like the sun and moon. (Prompt: Selenophobia, Karma, and Heliophilia.)


**Prompt: ****Selenophobia, Karma, & Heliophilia.**

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**i.**

TO BE PEACEFUL THROUGH AND THROUGH is to be without an aggressive, conflictive nature. To not see anything and have an immense hatred for it.

Junko is a woman of peace. She is a woman of kindness and gratitude and teaching those around her the way of pacifism, from encouraging Clownpiece to not try to hurt other fairies to Junko helping Hecatia with the three orbs in her possession.

When it came to Hecatia's orb of the moon, though, Junko was a tad...no, somewhat...no, _very_ distant and uncomfortable with being around it. The moon was probably one of the only two things that would receive a scoff from the orange-haired woman.

It could even be said that Junko...hated it. Yes, hated, that was the **perfect** name for how she felt about it.

Despite seeing herself as such a peaceful woman, however, Junko hates the moon. She hates the way it happily is in the night-sky, no marks or cuts or bruises or wounds on it. The way it follows her but she can never correctly follow _it._

The moon was always facing her, but every time Junko tries to touch it, it goes away and _laughs laughs laughs. _The sun Junko can handle, though. In fact, she seems to flourish the most when the rays of the day's bright orb is surrounding Junko.

The moon, however, strains her eyes and reminds her of **redredred. **The moon makes Junko want to find a way to get rid of night (and therefore the moon) so the day (and therefore the sun) can flourish forever.

Junko still does, though, just so that her thirst of vengeance can one day be quenched with the possible future of the moon, finally, being fully obliterated.

Sometimes, however, she wishes she would turn away and hiss like how she does when she glances at one the many paintings of her son for too long, because the minute her eyes turn to the moon, all the memories come back:

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_One son. One husband. One mistress._

_One son. One betrayer. One mistress._

_One injury. One arrow-shooter. One conductor._

_One body. One bloody-hand. One manipulator._

_One angry woman. One dead ex-husband. One fleeing whore._

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The memories seem to come back more and more and extend their stay messing with her mind, these days.

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**ii.**

Lately, Junko goes around the many rivers near her house, where she feeds the ducks and throws flies at the frogs and watches over the lily-pads that all hang around the small-islands of water that surround her home.

When it is night and the long-haired spirit bends down to examine each and every pale-pink petal of the lily-pads of her backyard, she notices that _thing_ reflects on the petals.

That cruel, _cruel cruel cruel_ thing. That thing with gray spots on it, laughing and laughing and laughing at Junko, and all the memories come back again.

The last time she had tried to wipe that disgusting grin off its face, the human miko had intervened...

This time, however, that human girl shall not intervene, as Junko is tired of being kind and sweet and without any "anger or disgust or grudges or hatred," because why is it that Junko should just let the past be the past when her family is dead and **Chang'e is still around?**

Junko is not going to continue a streak of failure any longer. Raising her hands up in the name of serenity cannot be used again—to make herself truly whole, she must raise her hands up and let crimson slowly trail down her palms and arms and shoulders.

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**iii.**

Junko's reunion with Chang'e is not as she hoped. Not _at all._

Chang'e is still sadly immortal and on the moon. Chang'e is awake. Chang'e is in a beautiful and colorful dress, her feet in red slippers and her face with the most heaviest of makeup. Her black hair ended in the longest of curls and swirls.

Yet, Chang'e is with a face of no expression. It is as if Chang'e has no soul left in her.

No anger. No joy. No sadness. Nothing. When Junko is finally able to slip through the moon and arrive at the building where her biggest enemy lay, Junko expected a shout of surprise and then anger.

What she got, however, was a face that was just a face. It was still as beautiful and porcelain-like as Junko remembers, and it is funny how even at Chang'e's worst, she manages to have a flair to her more attractive than Junko could ever wish to have.

She was like a doll, despite how cruel Chang'e could be inside, so fragile-looking and in such a fine demeanor, despite how vicious that tongue of hers is, how succubus-like that body of hers can be, and with how she presents herself as a harlot—

It's why Junko couldn't believe her husband, when he showed her white bedsheets with red stains that came from Chang'e, when Junko first found out about the affair her husband had with the woman.

(Weren't such low women willing to do such things all supposed to, like her mother and grandmother and her _grandmother's_ mother once told Junko when she was a little girl, loose to the point where blood of broken-barriers happened dozens and dozens of mens before said low women's latest married man they slept with?)

Junko looks down at Chang'e's chest, and she gasps. There are marks and cuts and bruises and wounds around the younger woman's breast, and Junko could tell they led near her stomach and bottom...

And on the side of Chang'e's left breast, the initials of Junko's husband are marked there, little bits of burned flesh surrounding it. The initials are such a sickly greenish-purple color, and yet Junko can tell the imprint is decades old.

In fact, it seems to be older than every single imperfection made unto the chained female's otherwise gorgeous curves.

...Atrocious.

"You..."

Junko's eyes widen. She didn't think Chang'e was going to open her mouth that Junko suddenly realized are bruised and swollen.

"You are...another one, yes...? Do...do whatever...Please, though, just let me rest next week..."

Chang'e pauses, holding a sniffle.

...

Junko looks at Chang'e. Chang'e looks at Junko.

(Why is Junko now realizing that the black around Change's eyes are dripping down and the red blush in the ebony-haired woman's face is blurred?)

Chang'e closes her eyes.

(Why does Junko now notice how the other female's blue covered eyelids are smeared? That the overall white paint covering Chang'e's face seems to have hand-prints on it?)

The black-colored line that was already on the left side of Chang'e's face slowly moves down even more and drips unto her beautiful dress, yet another one of the many makeup-stains that Junko realizes have been bleeding unto the lovely silk.

Junko takes a step forward but almost trips unto the sea of hair belonging to Chang'e, which Junko realizes seems to have parts of it cut and ripped out and spat at and burned.

_(Why is Junko's heart feeling for a **whore** who has the blood of Junko's sonsonsonson on her handshandshandshands?)_

Such a lovely-looking doll, Chang'e is. Beautiful skin and beautiful hair and a beautiful face. Such an attractive girl, Chang'e is.

Yet, with all that, Chang'e skin is covered in a disturbing rainbow of injuries. There isn't a single hair on her in place, and there's a broken hair-comb stuck around the left side of the top of her hair. The makeup on her face is in a heinous "structure."

A truly pitiful sight, beyond the needs of Chang'e "needing her just desserts." She seems to of gotten worse than that, as if the dozens of years Junko has been a motherless widow has each been lashed furiously upon Chang'e.

Perhaps it is for that reason that Junko, although she raises her left hand and points it right at the woman who took her husband and caused the slaughtering of her poor, poor little boy as if he were a rabid animal, then lets her hand down.

Junko sheds a tear now, and it falls unto the tongue of the other female, said other female saying:

"I repent once more...Bring the...next man..."

Junko doesn't respond. She just holds her breath and walks out the room, not bothering to look back.

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**iv.**

At night, Junko goes outside and throws the sweetest of bread at the birds that travel their skinny yellow feet unto the brown branches of her cherry-blossom trees. She tends to all the violets and apple-blossoms and chrysanthemums in her backyard.

She always reaches out her fingers to allow nocturnal butterflies—from the Monarches to the Orange-Tip Sulphurs—and tries to act like she doesn't see the moon's reflection through certain traces of their colorful wings.

Junko likes butterflies, though, so she can usually ignore the moon when the beautiful insects came around.

She can pretend that admiring the many shapes and sizes butterflies come in are more interesting than her recollection of that night decades ago when that certain aloof miko was still around.

Pretend that what she did was just the right thing, and that it won't come back to bite her—

Then...a certain white-winged butterfly travels its way unto her hand, and it runs the tip of its antennas on her skin, and as much as it is cute and pretty and sweet, Junko's ruby-red eyes always end up downcast.

It is a Moon Dust butterfly, wings so white they're almost like a prism, and from that Junko cries. The moon seems so flawless, and yet it is holding so many punctures it could make even men's eyes start to water.

Once again, Junko is alone (though she's always been) and cold and sobbingsobbingsobbing, and she's surrounded only by plants and flowers and insects and rivers that seem to be more serene than she claims _she_ is.

...

(Junko's starting to wonder if she is as bright as the sun or more like the suffering moon.)

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**v.**

_Junko is a woman, __a widowed and motherless woman._

_Chang'e is a woman, a single and tampered with woman._

_Junko's hair is bright and soars in swirls._

_Chang'e's hair is dark and succumbs in stiffness._

_Junko rises her hands up in the name of justice._

_Chang'e rises her hands down in the name of repentance._

_Junko is the sun, and Chang'e is the moon._

Revenge is not needed for Junko. Chang'e has received karma from folks who are neither Junko or inflicting misery on Chang'e in Junko's name.

_(So why does Junko keep feeling a sense of pity for the woman who ruined her life?)_

...

Despite her status as a calm woman, however, Junko hates the moon, and she believes that she's starting to hate herself too.

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**There you go. More Junko angst. **

**Ahmad inspired me to make a sequel to this, so expect one in the near future. _Until next time!_**


End file.
